1 Answer

One bowling crease is drawn at each end of the pitch such that the set of stumps fall on it (and consequently it is perpendicular to the imaginary line joining the centres of both middle stumps). Each bowling crease should be 8 feet 8 inches (2.64 metres) in length, centred on the middle stump at each end and terminating at one of the return creases.The bowling creases lie 22 yards (66 feet or 20.12 m) apart and mark the ends of the pitch, and so may be used to determine whether there is a no ball because a fielder has encroached on the pitch or the wicket-keeper has moved in front of the wicket before they are permitted to do so.Formerly, part of the bowler's back foot in the delivery stride was required to fall behind the bowling crease to avoid a delivery being a no ball. This rule was replaced by a requirement that part of the bowler's front foot in the delivery stride must fall behind the popping crease .

Popping crease

The odd name of the popping crease refers to the early history of the game of cricket, when batsmen used to have to 'pop' their bats into a small hole that was located in the middle of the crease for a run to count. For a player to run a batsman out, he had to pop the ball into the hole before the bat was grounded in it.One popping crease is drawn at each end of the pitch in front of each set of stumps. The popping crease is 4 feet (1.22 m) in front of and parallel to the bowling crease. Although it is considered to have unlimited length, the popping crease must be marked to at least 6 feet (1.83 metres) on either side of the imaginary line joining the centres of the middle stumps.The popping crease is used as one test of whether the bowler has bowled a no ball. To avoid a no ball, some part of the bowler's front foot in the delivery stride (that is, the stride when he releases the ball) must be behind the popping crease, although it does not have to be grounded.